


The Cyclone, Coney Island

by somethinginthestars



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Coney Island, Fluff, It's Kinda Gross, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, The cyclone, Vomiting, but so worth it I swear, but that's for you to decide, it's Bucky's Birthday, pov kind of randomly switches to bucky at the end just heads up so you're not confused, third person pov though i'm not a monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28549116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethinginthestars/pseuds/somethinginthestars
Summary: It's Bucky's birthday and of course he wants to go to Coney Island. Of course Steve's presence is mandatory. Of course they eat a load of junk food. Of course that's when Bucky insists on riding the Cyclone.~~~Someone on the internet said that when Steve was sixteen, he and Bucky were at Coney Island and they kissed at the top of the ferris wheel and that’s the day Steve realized he was in love with Bucky (hence the “I was a sixteen year old kid in Brooklyn again" after Bucky was mentioned in CA:TWS). Someone else said “okay but did they kiss before or after Steve threw up” and so I wrote it (spoiler alert: they kiss after Steve throws up).
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	The Cyclone, Coney Island

**Coney Island: March 10, 1935**

Steve’s not surprised when Bucky announces he wants to go to Coney Island for his birthday this year. It isn’t the first time they’ve gone and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s his eighteenth birthday and Steve is still only sixteen. A small part of him hates the three months between their birthdays. He feels like a stupid kid when Bucky has two years on him. He’s never brought it up and Bucky has certainly never even given it a thought, much less given Steve any shred ofa reason to think otherwise.

It’s not like Bucky has a shortage of options when it comes to friends and yet cool, suave, charismatic, well-dressed, put-together Bucky Barnes hangs out with scrawny, sickly, thick-skulled, dirt-poor Steve Rogers of all people. Steve doesn’t know what he’d do without Bucky—his very heart and soul would shatter even before his frail body would fail him without its constant caretaker—but Bucky is never loathe to display his steadfast loyalty.

It’s just the two of them, as it always is. The park is pretty quiet since the chill of late winter still floods the city. It’s Sunday, too, and it’s past midday by the time Steve and Bucky are out of church and making their way to Coney.

On Steve’s behalf, Bucky represses the urge to drag Steve onto the Cyclone all day. The sun begins to set and they’re growing rather ravenous after an afternoon of boyish shenanigans.

“What do you want to eat, Stevie?” Bucky slings an arm across Steve’s pencil-thin frame. “Take your pick: my treat.”

Steve wants to protest; after all, it’s commonplace to treat the birthday boy, not the other way around, but they’ve been over it before. Bucky rarely lets Steve cough up so much as a penny. “It’s your birthday, Buck. You should at least get to pick the menu.”

A wide grin blooms across Bucky’s face and Steve immediately regrets what he said. He opens his mouth and shakes his head. “No, Bucky, whatever you’re thinking—“ though Steve has a sick feeling he knows exactly what Bucky’s planning. Sometimes Steve wonders if the two of them share some sort of hive mind.

“Come on, Steve!” Bucky holds out his arms to sweep a gesture around them. “It’s my birthday! We’ve got to celebrate!”

They go on what can be considered the pub crawl of fast food stands: burgers, hot dogs, cotton candy, soda, and everything else they could get their hands on until they ran out of options.

“Let’s ride the Cyclone!” Bucky says, buzzing on a sugar high. He needs to do something, anything, to vent the copious amounts of energy and adrenaline exploding from his veins.

For better or for worse, Steve’s body is vibrating at the same frequency—it always has been, and Steve hopes beyond all reason that it always will. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

He sobers up as soon as the rollercoaster rockets into motion. The cold air combined with his overeating sweats freezes him straight through to his bone.

Bucky is shouting with delight. Steve looks up at him. The unadulterated joy that erupts from his very being alone is enough to thaw the chill.

His insides are still burning in a futile attempt to digest all the junk food they’d inhaled.

It all hits Steve like a runaway train in the split second when the rollercoaster launches; he’s going to throw up.

Bucky may be dizzy on sugar and adrenaline, but his Steve sensor is stronger than anything. He takes one sideways glance at Steve to notice the warning signs of motion sickness; he’d learned them by heart long ago. Bucky’s body is immediately kicking into motion—like muscle memory. “Jesus, Stevie.” He digs into his jacket pocket and brandishes one of the thin plastic sheets that the food stands wrap food in. Bucky’s lightning fast reflexes prove yet again to be a godsend. He catches Steve’s vomit just in time to save the park workers from a clean up job.

Steve moans his regret in between his dry heaving. His stomach has emptied itself of his dinner by the time the roller coaster slides to a stop. Having been seated at the back, it was easy to slip out and away without drawing attention. Bucky did a quick scan before they bailed and he’s proud to report that they will be taking all of Steve’s meal with them out of the roller coaster and the pretty ladies lining up to take their place will be vomit-free.

Bucky ditches the makeshift bowl of Steve’s vomit at the nearest trash can before pulling him into the bathroom. Without a word, Bucky produces a handkerchief and begins cleaning Steve’s shirt as he’d still managed to splatter some of his half-digested food on himself.

With the thick tongue of someone who’d just thrown up, Steve groans out, “Sorry, Buck.”

“Steve Rogers? Apologizing?” Bucky grins. “It really is my birthday.”

“I’m serious, Bucky.”

“Come on, Steve—“

“You shouldn’t have to clean up after me,” Steve says. “Especially on your birthday.”

“It’s not a big deal, Steve.”

“You sure you wouldn’t be having a better time if—“

“No.” Bucky slams the emergency breaks on _that_ spiraling freight car. Schooling his tone back into calm, he continues, “I’d be miserable without you, Stevie. You’re the life of the party!”

Steve has the urge to inform Bucky that the opposite is, in fact, true: that he is the death of the party and he has the medical record to prove it.

Never once has it hampered Bucky’s opinion of him. Steve has yet to fathom what in the world he did to deserve his best friend.

“We can go home now,” Bucky say once he’s done cleaning Steve’s shirt, “if you want.”

“Is it still your birthday?”

Bucky checks his watch. “We’ve got half an hour.”

“I think the ferris wheel is still open.”

Bucky beams and they do just that. When they get to the front of the line, Steve clambers into the carriage with Bucky on his heels. They’re halfway to the top when Steve finally feels the weight of the long day.

“If you’re gonna chuck again, you should do it sooner rather than later,” Bucky says, “I think I saw that blunderbuss Johnny Carr in line behind us and we’ll be above him in a minute—“

Steve has enough energy to laugh, but then he’s completely tapped. He sinks into the unforgivingly solid ferris wheel chair but Bucky doesn’t let him sit in discomfort for more than a split second. He drapes his arm across Steve’s shoulders and pulls him into his side.

By the time they reach the top, pausing to load the seat at the bottom, Steve’s practically asleep. He has enough consciousness to mumble into Bucky’s shoulder, though. “Happy birthday, Bucky.”

Bucky cranes his head to look at Steve’s sleepy eyes. “Sorry for making you throw up.”

Steve shakes his head minutely. “You’re… I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Bucky.”

It breaks Bucky's heart to know how little Steve thinks of himself. The two of them are polar opposites in their thoughts on Steve Rogers, but Bucky doesn't want to start another fight over it right now, so he submits his perspective like surrendering a soft defeat. “You deserve the whole world, Steve.”

Steve looks up at Bucky and the rest of the world turns to dust in the wind. Bucky always feels chained by the weight of reality, even in the quiet privacy of their apartment. He lets it slip—just this once.

It’s Steve in his sleepy daze who leans in first, but abandons the action halfway through. Bucky loses his mind. He leans in to finish what Steve started because if he didn’t he just knew he’d never recover.

Steve is as fragile as a flower but his spirit burns with the fire of a thousand suns and Bucky fucking _blooms_.

It’s over as soon as it started. He blinks and Steve is fast asleep in his arms. The ferris wheel starts its descent. He’ll stir Steve at the end so he can walk out of the park but Bucky will carry a sleeping Steve up the stairs to their apartment and change his dirty clothes and fall asleep right next to him like his whole universe hadn’t shifted on its axis.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Bucky's 18th birthday (March 10, 1935) was, in fact, on a Sunday.


End file.
